


The Pie Maker's Tax Accountant

by LateMarch



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M, Pie, Romance, goddamn it why did they cancel that show, i'm so happy with the way this turned out, tax accountants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateMarch/pseuds/LateMarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick look at how Ned might fall in love again. With his accountant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pie Maker's Tax Accountant

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this quick little one-shot for the writing challenge that I manage over on LiveJournal (http://octoberwriting.livejournal.com/95082.html?view=367978). I've been re-watching the show and realizing why I love the show so much, and this little plot bunny appeared - I'm had a lot of fun writing this, so I hope you all like it!

For the Pie Maker, the process of falling in love again was an unintentional one, at least in the beginning.

It started when he hired a Tax Accountant for the Pie Hole.

The process of hiring a Tax Accountant seemed simple enough to Ned: you find one and you hire them. Except that this Tax Accountant was more than just a simple Tax Accountant. He once had thought that Chuck came ready-made from the Play-Doh Fun Factory of Life, and maybe, probably, that was true. But this Tax Accountant came from somewhere entirely different: maybe, probably, from one of those museums with the pale marble busts that everyone desired, statues that looked and felt but never said anything.

(Part of the infatuation and the analogy may have been explained by the fact that upon visiting one such museum as an eleven year old boy, Ned was overcome by the need to touch some sort of human form and that’s how he ended up caught with his hand on the boob of a Venus de Milo copy.)

The Tax Accountant, who was really a woman named Blysse, was just such a statue. She smiled and nodded and did his taxes and his bookkeeping and on the whole mostly didn’t say anything. But later reflection upon each appointment, unconscious reflection that the Pie Maker mostly did not realize he was absorbed in, usually yielded an important principle of life according to Blysse that he was determined never to forget. For example: in the midst of one late night commercial hawking green “non-stick” sautée pans, Ned realized that her favorite color was red. Another night he crashed back into reality to find Chuck standing across the coffee table and carefully waving her hand in his face.

“Pie.” Was Ned’s answer to Chuck’s technical question about testing the proximity of his gift. “She loves pie.”

“Olive?”

“Yes, but no.” Ned was stacking his hands in front of his chest as he often did.

“Me?”

“Yes, but no.” And this was how Chuck ended up pitching a pillow at Ned’s head and how Ned decided to hold his tax and bookkeeping appointments at the Pie Hole itself, and nowhere near as distasteful as an office building.

This turned out to be a very successful strategy, whether the Pie Maker or the Tax Accountant realized it was a strategy or not. Mostly because the Tax Accountant got free pieces of Three Plum Pie and the Pie Maker got to walk around dressed in floured aprons with mussed hair, which he had been told made him look quite dashing.

“Want more coffee, hun?” Olive was buzzing about the restaurant with a pot o’joe in her hands, and she smiled when Blysse pushed her cup forward with a nod of her head. Several pieces of paper, apparently important to all things financial, scattered the counter, and Tax Accountant Blysse turned to gather them up while Ned watched surreptitiously from behind a stack of gruyere and brie, which Chuck was slowly convincing him to bake into savory pies. He was slowly letting himself be convinced because Blysse the Tax Accountant quite liked cheese.

But she didn’t love it.

And that was really one of the great things about her, he decided then and on a number of other occasions. She was just enough like Chuck to catch his eye in the first place, but not nearly similar enough for there to be any danger of confusion. Like his childhood love, she very much enjoyed aquatic acrobatics, appeared to have a fondness for wearing dresses, and spoke French, although not very much of it. Yet Chuck was short and loud, while Blysse was tall but quiet and frankly preferred to stay far away from bees of any kind.

Perhaps exhibiting hair that just a bit too mussed and rubbing a bit too much flour into his hands (though the rest of him stayed rather clean), Ned walked over to the diner counter and gathered from what he thought was some inaudible mumbling or perhaps just a prolonged grimace, that the meeting was over. Looking around for something that might detain her and finding nothing, the Pie Maker caught the eye of Chuck, who grinned secretly and waved a hand in encouragement.

“Perhaps you might like to meet tomorrow.” He asked the Tax Accountant while folding his arms across his chest.

She looked up from the papers to catch him in the crosshairs of huge green eyes and still said nothing. Inconvenient for Ned, yes. Since most people who didn’t have words had touch and most people who didn’t have touch had words. Between the two of them, they hardly had either.

“Here. Another tax meeting.” He found himself saying before he could stop himself. “Crunching the numbers again and besides, I’d feel better if you explained what you’re doing with the… Alternate income again.”

“Come anytime. He’ll be here all day.” The Pie Maker’s childhood love interrupted.

Blysse was taking in hand the to-go box of pie that Chuck was pressing into her hands, and maybe it was the blustery wind outside or maybe it was the heat of the ovens, but Ned swore he saw the tips of her ears turn red as she nodded in agreement and left.

“So I take it you like her?” Chuck was leaning against the counter with a somewhat amused smile on her face. It was something of a comfort to know that she at least appeared to approve of his Tax Accountant.

“I like her because she isn’t dead.” Emerson was in for ‘two minutes and piece of pie,’ and he was eating some fresh rhubarb and looking over his newly knitted wallet cozy for any imperfections.

“Like the warmth of a fresh pie on a cold winter’s day.” Ned said, still staring at the door and sounding rather calm though he felt nothing quite so easy to describe inside.

Olive was passing by with a tray laden with orders and sniffed a little, raising her nose a bit. “She seems alright. Do you touch her?”

Well, Ned couldn’t very well say that he didn’t yet touch her, or that he wanted to, or that he hoped he might someday, so really all he could do was turn around and go back into the kitchen.

Blysse the Tax Accountant showed up the next day, near to closing time. She looked flustered and tired but still like the kind of person Ned was happy to see. “Please, sit down.” He told her, and tried not to wince when Chuck noisily shooed Olive, Emerson, and herself out the front door, leaving them alone in the Pie Hole.

Maybe there was more mumbling involved, but it was mostly Ned’s impression that his Tax Accountant appreciated the cup of coffee he passed her and was sorry that she was so late. She sat in a circle of light at the counter, head bent as she unbuttoned her jacket and draped it over her chair, then carefully sipped her coffee.

The Pie Maker was pulling the last piece of strawberry pie out of the still warm oven and wondering if he had enough flour on to look dashing when he caught sight of the maybe downtrodden Tax Accountant and realized that he loved her.

This was brought on by the precluding realization that his feelings for her mirrored the ones he once had, maybe still had, for Chuck. Of course, one could never love two different people in the same way, so when his appreciation for all of Blysse’s fine details came forth in a rush to the front of his mind Ned, at twenty-nine years, one month, six days, fifteen hours, and fifty-one minutes realized for the first time that he was in love with his Tax Accountant.

In love with Blysse, like he wanted to press right up against that statue and maybe temporarily introduce it to the Play-Doh Fun Factory of Life and feed it all the pie it wanted.

A little stunned and feeling the effects of rushing hormones, he handed her the pie and then for the first time they touched, fingers brushing against each other and the pie plate. Blysse looked a little startled, but suddenly more alert and rosy. “Oh, thank you.” She said, pretty much the first words Ned had managed to hear her say clearly.

It struck him for a moment that she was little bit like the deceased that he touched. They were still and quiet and came alive when he touched them. Blysse was still and quiet too for all that she was living and breathing, and when he touched her skin, it was like she awoke from a deep sleep or came alive with a rising, glowing fire inside. Maybe that was a pretty conceited notion, but Ned was okay with that, because he was never going to tell anyone about it, ever. He thought that she noticed her touch had a similar effect on him, and that the best part was, he didn’t have to fear touching her again.

And so Ned smiled and sat down with her and smiled some more, maybe a little too much. It was okay though, because she smiled back at him.

And that was how the Pie Maker and the Tax Accountant fell in love.


End file.
